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Jupiter, v. 1, issue 1, May 1946
Page 4
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BOOB'S BOOK NOOK BOB TUCKER "People on the Dark Side" by Wesley Millan: Ward & Ward, $2.50 That title reached out and stuck my good eye, the one that isn't glass, with all the verve and wallop of Sam Moskowitz's vaunted left hook. It definitely was not something you'd expect to find offered for sale at a Sunday school bazar--unless my wildly galloping senses told me as my fingers reached for the volume--unless it was only as missionary story of the sout seas and concerned itself with a happy life among the "uncivilized" pigmented natives. What such a book was doing in a Sunday school bazar is something I can't explain; anymore than I can explain what I was doing there. But there we both were, and happily, this book did not let me down. It was science-fiction. Had the good churchfolk known the general calibre of its contents they would have burned it, convinced the devil himself had invaded the sanctity of their commercial activities. If any book could be said to be right down a fan's alley, this one is. The leading character of this long novel, "the hero" if you wish, is a fan. Not the sort of fan you and I associate with, one who attends conventions, publishes a fanzine or travels about recruiting suckers for-his club. This character is a widely read enthusiast of H.G.Wells, Jules Verne, Aldous Huxley and Olaf Stapledon. His knowledge of the sciences, while not spectacular or deep, is wide and fairly comprehensive in what he knows a little of all them because of his heavy reading. The story opens with our hero realizing in a dull, surprised sort of way that something strange and probably spectacular is taking place on the sand flats of Utah. Because of his reading and some rather reasonable powers of deduction he arrives at the conclusion that a spaceship is being constructed, and forthwith sets out to discover it. Discover it he does and proceeds to make a nusiance of himself in demanding to be taken along. He is kept at camp, not entirely against his will, so that he will not go back to town and spread the news. At this point a coincidence is stretched a bit further than the author can soundly put across to the reader: one of the ships crew-members drops dead of heart attack just before the take-off time. Naturally our hero steps into the breach by demonstrating his comparitively keen knowledge of a good many science, especially those pertaing to rocketry and the spacial journey ahead. He is accepted with misgivings and the rocket is launced. Meanwhile, let it be noted here, our hero has one strange and outstanding affliction. He suffers from a bad eye, he says, and continually wears a black patch over the other eye. The author so continually refers to this fact thru-out the story that the reader quickly realizes it is a deliberate plant, and will figure more actively later on in the plot. The ship's avowed destination is Mars, but as the title indicates, our pioneering explorers never reach there. Through some faulty navigation caused by the death of the chief navigator, and an accident resulting in the loss of a great deal of fuel, it is soon realized there is naught to do but turn tail and run for home while enough fuel remains to save their lives. Instead, our hero persuades the scientists to land on the moon. Strange and artificial lights are discovered on the dark side, and after the instruments have detected amazing warmth in those lights, the ship sets down. You guessed it--there is a magnificent city, inhabited by nothing but wonderful, wonderful women. Millions of women. Gosh they're beautiful. The Biologist from the ship finds during the course of his wanderings about the city that this race of beautiful women perpetuate their kind by artificial means, and of course proceeds to change things by insisting that nature's way is best--that is he is more than willing to play stud horse in the best interests of science and nature. Oddly enough, the ladies resent this radical viewpoint. [ two illegible lines] 4
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BOOB'S BOOK NOOK BOB TUCKER "People on the Dark Side" by Wesley Millan: Ward & Ward, $2.50 That title reached out and stuck my good eye, the one that isn't glass, with all the verve and wallop of Sam Moskowitz's vaunted left hook. It definitely was not something you'd expect to find offered for sale at a Sunday school bazar--unless my wildly galloping senses told me as my fingers reached for the volume--unless it was only as missionary story of the sout seas and concerned itself with a happy life among the "uncivilized" pigmented natives. What such a book was doing in a Sunday school bazar is something I can't explain; anymore than I can explain what I was doing there. But there we both were, and happily, this book did not let me down. It was science-fiction. Had the good churchfolk known the general calibre of its contents they would have burned it, convinced the devil himself had invaded the sanctity of their commercial activities. If any book could be said to be right down a fan's alley, this one is. The leading character of this long novel, "the hero" if you wish, is a fan. Not the sort of fan you and I associate with, one who attends conventions, publishes a fanzine or travels about recruiting suckers for-his club. This character is a widely read enthusiast of H.G.Wells, Jules Verne, Aldous Huxley and Olaf Stapledon. His knowledge of the sciences, while not spectacular or deep, is wide and fairly comprehensive in what he knows a little of all them because of his heavy reading. The story opens with our hero realizing in a dull, surprised sort of way that something strange and probably spectacular is taking place on the sand flats of Utah. Because of his reading and some rather reasonable powers of deduction he arrives at the conclusion that a spaceship is being constructed, and forthwith sets out to discover it. Discover it he does and proceeds to make a nusiance of himself in demanding to be taken along. He is kept at camp, not entirely against his will, so that he will not go back to town and spread the news. At this point a coincidence is stretched a bit further than the author can soundly put across to the reader: one of the ships crew-members drops dead of heart attack just before the take-off time. Naturally our hero steps into the breach by demonstrating his comparitively keen knowledge of a good many science, especially those pertaing to rocketry and the spacial journey ahead. He is accepted with misgivings and the rocket is launced. Meanwhile, let it be noted here, our hero has one strange and outstanding affliction. He suffers from a bad eye, he says, and continually wears a black patch over the other eye. The author so continually refers to this fact thru-out the story that the reader quickly realizes it is a deliberate plant, and will figure more actively later on in the plot. The ship's avowed destination is Mars, but as the title indicates, our pioneering explorers never reach there. Through some faulty navigation caused by the death of the chief navigator, and an accident resulting in the loss of a great deal of fuel, it is soon realized there is naught to do but turn tail and run for home while enough fuel remains to save their lives. Instead, our hero persuades the scientists to land on the moon. Strange and artificial lights are discovered on the dark side, and after the instruments have detected amazing warmth in those lights, the ship sets down. You guessed it--there is a magnificent city, inhabited by nothing but wonderful, wonderful women. Millions of women. Gosh they're beautiful. The Biologist from the ship finds during the course of his wanderings about the city that this race of beautiful women perpetuate their kind by artificial means, and of course proceeds to change things by insisting that nature's way is best--that is he is more than willing to play stud horse in the best interests of science and nature. Oddly enough, the ladies resent this radical viewpoint. [ two illegible lines] 4
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